Fashion Stylist: Sarah May

I'm trying to get in the mindset required to lug three enormous bags to Heathrow on the tube (namely, I need to be resilient when people glare at me for taking up so space). So only one post today. I'm really charmed by Sarah May's fashion photography - if I was ever going to buy a fashion print it would be something like this. Her work is slightly disconcerting and jarring and it certainly grabs your attention. Merry Christmas to all - see you on the 26th!

Unusual wall stickers

This unusual wall sticker really made me laugh. I'd love to have the hamster as I have several friends that tease me about Portugal being a bit backwards when it comes to infrastructure - they like to talk about the donkey I keep in the basement to generate electricity on a treadmill so this'd show them!

Found via Fitacola

Sfera mechanical scales

Scales may not be the sexiest piece of kitchen equipment on the market (that accolade is reserved for the ice cream maker in my book!) but Sfera have come up with a set of mechanical scales (£32) that look pretty as well as functional. I'm quite a sci-fi buff so I like the idea of a little red pod sitting on the side, if nothing else so that I can push the top of it and make a whooshing noise, pretending that I'm opening a portal to another dimension...!

Casa Decor 09 - A house fit for three generations at once

Every year the interior design section of Portuguese magazine Caras renovate a house around a central theme. This year the theme is multi-generational living. This Lisbon house was redecorated to allow three generations of the same family to live there. I love the use of colour and the sophistication of the different areas (part for children against adult living). The house is open for viewing in Lisbon for the whole of December.

Painted trams and metro carriages - CIN RE-MAKE 09

CIN RE-MAKE 09 is a scheme that encourages and fosters new talent amongst young Portuguese artists by allowing them to make their mark on the urban landscape. They redecorate metro carriages and trams. The trains and trams started running last month - commutes are colourful in Lisbon!

Ice bear project: Trafalgar Square

One of the things I love about London is how the streets themselves act as art galleries. You never know when you're going to turn a corner and be faced with a new installation, be it a piece of grafitti or a giant pigeon. The Ice Bear Project in Trafalgar Square is a poignant ice sculpture of a bear by Mark Coreth that will melt to leave a brone skeleton behind. It is intended as a comment on the Copenhagen Summit, to show Londoners the connection between our actions and the resulting consequences on nature. Worth a look if you're in town.

Images are copyright Lillian Todd-Jones.

Christmas candles

With just three sleeps left until Christmas, I'm feeling festive. Although physically I'm in the office, mentally I'm sitting in front of the fire and an over-decorated tree at home. And as Christmas is the one time of the year that everyone loses the plot to some extent, you can get away with novelty items. I love these handmade Christmas candles from Portuguese designer Elsa Fernandes (owner of the shop Pontos de Luz). They start at €3.50 and she ships internationally.

Shop in the spotlight: Aguas Furtadas

Portuguese design shop Águas Furtadas has a wide variety of original items created by local artists. I've mentioned their original take on traditional souvenir roosters before and as they've just released a new range of homeware items, I thought I'd feature some of them here. This place is top of my "to visit" list during my Christmas trip home to Lisbon!

Coffin Couches

I'd love to have a Chesterfield. However, in the absence of a decent bonus this year (or a conveniently distant relative ready to croak and bequeath one), I've been looking around for more affordable sofas with the same dimple effect. I ran across the Coffin Couches company on WickedHalo and was really impressed with the concept. This is eco/green design taken to a whole new level. They take coffins that are slightly imperfect (because of design or manufacture flaws) and recycle them by turning them into sofas. I hereby nominate these couches as the rock star's "Must have" accessory of choice for 2010. Prices start at a suitably scary $3,500.

Candles in cages

I noticed a great idea (both practical and beautiful - hurrah!) in this month's Homes and Gardens. One living room had been styled with enormous church candles inside a wrought iron birdcage that had been placed next to the fireplace. What a great idea - the candles looked pretty and whoever owned the house could be secure in the knowledge that they wouldn't get knocked over or spill wax all over the place (a BIG concern when it took you a whole weekend to treat, sand and varnish the floor!). Any advice on where to pick up 3ft candles for very little money would be greatly appreciated! (Image via Credit Crunch Bride)

Tank cigarette mini-books

The problem with blogging close to Christmas is that if you find something really cool, you're likely to buy it for someone close to you. And it then follows that there's a possibility that they might read your blog and see it, thus spoiling the surprise. However, after a festive lunch and present exchange with my girlfriends this weekend, I wanted to mention the Tank Books I bought them in Brick Lane. The flip-top cigarette pack is one of the most successful pieces of packaging design in history and to celebrate it they're launched a series of books designed to mimic cigarette packs – the same size, packaged in flip-top cartons with silver foil wrapping and sealed in cellophane. The stories are all classics and are complete and unabridged – with a type size that’s easy to read. Wonderful stocking fillers for the bookworms you know and love!

Rockabye Baby CD's (OR "How to bring up a trendy baby")

"Baa, baa black sheep" begone. Farewell "Hush, little baby". These days, trendy parents encourage baby to develop modern music taste from the cradle. I noticed these Rockabye Baby CD's in the lovely homewares shop Horsfall & Wright near my house. For just £12 a pop, your child can be soothed to sleep by an instrumental lullabye version of Radiohead's "Karma Police" or the Rolling Stone's "Angie". Sheer brilliance - now I'm just anxious for my pregnant friends to drop, so to speak!

Print Club London: Pop-up shop on Brick Lane

The Print Club London (based in Dalston) have appropriated 214 Brick Lane this weekend for one of their famous poster shows. Not only are the posters actually poster sized (as opposed to the tiny prints you see so often), they start at a ridiculously cheap £35 for hand-pulled, signed and occasionally limited edition work by up and coming artists. The club itself was set up to provide an affordable screenprinting facility for aspiring artists and they've attracted some big illustrator, designer and street artist names (including Joe Wilson, Hennie Haworth, Rose Stallard, The Ministry of Love and Tinsel Edwards). They'll be open from 11-6 on Saturday and Sunday and prints will go quickly so get there early (although you can buy at their online shop if you can't make it to London). My shopping list is below (although they seem to have sold out of several online - fingers crossed for tomorrow!):

"Alphabet" by Hennie Haworth (£35)

"Shotgun bird" by Joe Wilson (£35)

"Secret blisters" by Agent Provocateur (£35)

Treehouses

With people creating homes in shipping containers, old disused train carriages, windmills and abandoned barns, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the human race is running out of space. Treehouses, long the territory of small children with slingshots (and the odd father kipping on the floor after forgetting their anniversary again), have started to move into the mainstream. There are a lot of reasons to move from a house to a tree (the obvious eco and view-related ones aside). Don't like your neighbours? Try a squirrel instead. Fed up with drunkards throwing litter into your front garden? Hoist it 20 feet into the air. Images via Treehouse Workshop:

Thoughts on snow

Although I'm a big fan of the general prettiness of snow, I'm also a little wary of the stuff. The last time it snowed in London, the pretty whiteness lasted a grand total of 8.3 seconds before everywhere was coated in horrible grey gritty slush. However, worse still, I managed to safely navigate my way home, taking very small, careful steps, only to slip on some ice on the stairs outside my house and fracture my coccyx (cue sister shrieking "Tell the truth - you broke your bum!"). Needless to say, calling in sick to work and having to explain the problem was pretty embarrassing and I still cringe when I think of the A&E examination. So yes please to snow - but only when either from a distance (a window seat in a warm bar) or on weekends when I can wear wellies and romp in the parks away from the slushy streets. So this year, despite the Met office claiming that we can expect more snow in London this week, I'm going to turn elsewhere for my snowflake fix. I absolutely adore Penhaligon's traditional English ranges anyway and was really excited to see that they're branching out (yet another Christmas pun - I'm on a roll!) into decorations. This Silver-plated snowflake (£15) is all the snow I'm looking for at the moment!